


Until we breathe again

by narada-talis (sarensen)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (in the other universe), (in this universe), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Existential Crisis, M/M, Pre-Relationship, briefly touches on shiro's ptsd, magical lion shenanigans, soul transplant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:08:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26634112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarensen/pseuds/narada-talis
Summary: When Shiro dies in the fight against Zarkon, his soul gets transported to an alternate reality where Voltron doesn't exist...Excerpt:Shiro cups his cheek and presses their lips together, and it’s more than a kiss: it’s a promise that connects him to all the other variants of himself, like a delicate web of string lights in the dark; it’salwaysand it’sin all realities.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 129
Collections: Across Realities





	Until we breathe again

**Author's Note:**

> This was my submission for the [Across Realities zine](https://twitter.com/RealitiesZine)!  
> Thank you so much to my wonderful beta readers, Yess and Sai. <3

Shiro gasps into consciousness and upright, heart pounding. Traces of the nightmare lie, barely faded, on the edges of his memory; skid marks at the scene of an accident. 

For a moment, he can’t remember how to breathe. His throat closes, lungs constricting. He clutches at his chest, then at the rest of his body in confusion, expecting there to be pain when there is none. 

He’s whole. He’s alive. 

Closing his eyes, he forces himself to inhale, and then exhale, concentrating on the flow of air through his body. Slowly, the world starts to slot back into place around him. Piece by piece, he becomes aware of his surroundings: it’s cold and the air smells like iron and dirt and blood and sweat. In the distance is the clang of metal bars, the thud of boots marching in unison.

The realization of where he is hits him with the force of a supernova, shaking him to his very core.

When he opens his eyes, it’s to a nightmare.

It’s just like he remembers: the small cell and its cold metal floor, an old, torn blanket crumpled in the corner; his only comfort. The only light, purple and ominous, comes from the small slit in the center of the door through where he knows a plate of stale bread and a cup of metallic-tasting water will be shoved once a day. 

He reaches up with shaky fingers to touch hair grown past his shoulders, tangled and wild, and a scratch of stubble on his face. 

“No,” he says, like a prayer. “Please.”

Violently shoving down the panic clawing up his throat, he casts a wild glance around the dimly-lit cell. His eyes land on a pile of ragged purple and black that shifts with a soft scrape against the metal floor.

“What’s going on?” he demands. “Where am I?”

The pile of purple and black unfolds into something with a humanoid shape and distinctly inhuman eyes. “Shut it,” it grunts, “‘m trying to sleep.”

“Where’s Voltron? What’ve they done with the other Paladins?” Shiro asks, trying and failing to mask the desperation in his voice.

The prisoner shakes its head with a sigh. “The Champion finally cracked, huh.”

Shiro stares at him, speaking slowly. “What did you just call me?”

The prisoner huffs, turning away from him. “Suppose getting your head bashed in so much was bound to catch up to ya at some point. Sendak won’t be happy. He’s made a lot of money betting on your fights for the past deca-phoeb.”

Shiro slumps back against the wall, staring out at nothing. “Deca-phoeb... This can’t be happening. I can’t be here.”

“Feel free to leave any time.” The prisoner gestures toward the cell door sarcastically. 

Shiro doesn’t even hear him. He clutches at his head. 

Between him and the Champion are months of memory; the thrill of escaping on a small Galra cruiser and the strangeness and beauty of seeing new planets and hearing the voice of the Black Lion for the first time, shaking him down to his bones. He knows each of those moments intimately. He’s _lived_ them.

He remembers fighting Zarkon. He remembers—

_—fire, flashes of light, Zarkon’s metal talons closing around Voltron’s head, the agony of purple lightning searing like poison through his body, echoes of sound like someone screaming his name—_

—and in those final seconds, darkness pulling him down like quicksand. He remembers feeling Black reach out toward him, clawing at the edges of the abyss, desperately trying to pull him back, and then, nothing.

The sound of the tiny hydraulic pistons in his prosthetic arm is suddenly louder than an ion cannon, the smell of old blood on his shirt overpowering. 

He’s the Champion again.

The world starts to spin. The carefully-structured lines of what he thought was his reality start to blur. The memory of Voltron warps, his friends’ faces distorting. His months as the Black Paladin turn into months spent in this cell in an endless cycle of fighting-sleeping-bleeding instead. A whole other life, a whole other existence outside of his knowledge and consent—both lives equally vivid, equally confusing.

He’s the Champion again.

A deep boom vibrates the cell floor, wrenching Shiro back to the present. He gulps air. Dust and metal grit showers down from the ceiling. A klaxon winds up. Red emergency lights click on, and from somewhere deeper in the prison comes the sound of muffled yelling.

The other prisoner shuffles to his feet, slamming his palms against the cell door to peer through the slat at the corridor outside. He jerks back at the sound of heavy sentry footsteps pounding by, swearing in confusion.

“What is it?” Shiro asks, straining up futilely from his place on the floor. “What’s going on?”

Before the other prisoner can say anything, the cell doors implode, crashing inward and slamming him into the opposite wall.

Shiro throws his arms up to shield himself from the metal debris hurled towards him, Galra tech crackling to life reflexively. His ears ring in the wake of the explosion, and the ambient sounds around him become muffled and indiscernible. 

As the dust slowly clears, Shiro’s heart leaps. Standing in the doorway is Keith, sleek in Marmora purple, light from the inlays in his suit and blade hazing in the smoke. 

“Keith!” He rushes to his feet, relief plain in his voice, and is across the room in a second, hugging Keith around the waist tightly enough to lift him off the floor. 

Nothing else makes sense except seeing him. He’s an anchor, Shiro’s only tether to the familiar. 

“Shiro...” Keith’s voice breaks over the word, and it’s inflected like a question, saturated with disbelief. Like a beam of sun cutting through cloud, his voice reaches Shiro clearly, and the ringing stops. Sound rushes back in.

He lowers Keith slowly and lets go when he sees the expression on his face. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re alive...”

Before Shiro can parse the meaning in that, another Blade skids to a halt in the ruined doorway, face hidden behind their signature three-eyed mask. “We found him.” Its voice distorts through the modulator. “Time to leave. This place is about to blow.”

Shiro’s eyebrows climb as he glances between the two Blades. He has a million questions. Found whom? Why were the Blades on Zarkon’s prison ship? Why was Keith with them? But most importantly—“Blow?”

Keith grabs his hand and sets off at a run after the other Blade, tugging Shiro behind him. “Bombs,” he yells over his shoulder, “no time to explain.”

They make their way through the rubble of the ship, dodging laser bolts and ducking through billowing smoke. Keith seems to know his way through the twisting maze of corridors, and in no time at all they exit into a large hangar filled with neat rows of fighter jets. They bolt up the side of the closest fighter, and Keith bundles Shiro inside the hull before slipping into the pilot’s seat above.

It’s over too fast for Shiro to entirely understand what’s happening. One moment they’re shooting through the wall of Galra sentries blocking the exit of the hangar; the next he’s watching the miniature sun left in the wake of the cruiser’s explosion shrink into the distance through the aft viewport. The only thing that makes sense is Keith’s voice overhead, issuing commands to the other Blades over their comms.

They shoot past an asteroid field of metal debris, leaving the wreckage far behind, until the darkness of open space stretches out in front of them. The surge of adrenaline from their escape slowly starts to subside, silence replacing the blood rushing in Shiro’s ears.

He’s watching Keith descend the short ladder from the cockpit when the walls warp around him. He squeezes his eyes shut, pressing his back against the cool metal of the hull. His body burns. He feels as though he’s looking up at the shimmering world from the depths of black water, and the feeling of foreignness, of not belonging, becomes overpowering.

Desperate, he reaches into himself for something to hold on to, but finds only emptiness—an open space inside his body almost the exact shape of his mind. Almost. It’s frayed around the edges, a loose fit in parts with pockets of void where memories he doesn’t recognize lay dormant, and far, far, below, a faint glow. It’s pale and almost undetectable, almost unreachable, hidden and cold but unmistakably familiar.

He stretches toward it, deep into the thick, black water surrounding him. When he brushes against it, recognition jolts through him like a lance of ice. He sees flashes of his childhood: playing on the beach with his grandfather, crying at his mother’s funeral, saying goodbye to his friends the day he left for the Garrison. The memories flash by faster, subtly different now: Keith doesn’t steal his car, Adam buys him cufflinks for their anniversary, and Shiro feels like he’s choking now, like he can’t catch his breath properly under the weight of an entire history that isn’t his.

He doesn’t belong here. The thought rings clear as a bell, loud enough to stop the chaos in his mind. This isn’t his reality. They fought Zarkon, and won, but the price for that was—

“Shiro.”

His eyes snap open. He gasps, sinking to his knees, eyes stretched wide with understanding and his chest aching with how hard his heart is pounding.

“Shiro,” Keith repeats, softer, and when Shiro manages to turn his head, it’s to find him crouched in front of him with a worried frown.

He pulls Keith into a tight hug. His stomach churns with the same fraught unease from before, now amplified tenfold by the knowledge of _why_. In this moment, he needs this, needs to ground himself with Keith, with the only thing that still makes sense to him, or the panic looming on the edges of his mind will overwhelm him.

Keith is rigid, unresponsive, the hard lines of his body not resisting the embrace, but not returning it, either. Shiro kisses his forehead, more out of habit than because he’s thinking entirely straight, and releases him. They slowly sit down next to each other on the ship’s narrow bench. For a few moments, the silence between them is only interrupted by the soft drone of the engines and the barely-discernible beep of the radar running in the cockpit.

It’s almost awkward. Shiro looks at the opposite hull, at the purple striplights lining the floor, at the iron mesh beneath his worn shoes, everywhere but at the shadow shifting in the corner of his sight.

“We weren’t even looking for you,” Keith says, almost too casually, as though forcing himself to sound calm. “One of our operatives got made. The mission was to break him out... And there you were.”

The silence fills with the soft whir of tiny mechanical pistons as Shiro clenches and unclenches his Galra fist. He can’t explain his presence in that cell any more than Keith can.

Keith’s voice is almost a whisper when he says, “I thought I’d never see you again.”

Shiro does look at him, then, curiosity mingling with dread creeping like black tar up his spine. “What happened?”

“One year ago, you went to Kerberos.” Keith is staring down at his hands. His voice is even, carefully emotionless. “You never came back.” 

Shiro tries to swallow past the lump in his throat. The confirmation of what he suspected sinks into him like cement. A sense of wrongness overlays every thought, every movement. It’s his body, but it belongs to someone else. The burning feeling returns, and he recognizes it now for what it is: an echo of the pain of having his very soul wrenched from his body. He’s Shiro, but he’s not _this_ Shiro.

This isn’t his reality.

Oblivious to Shiro’s inner turmoil, Keith continues. “The Galra found the Blue Lion on Earth. They took over the place, destroyed everything. Krolia got me out before it got really bad. I thought you—” Here, his breath hitches, and he takes a moment before continuing. “I thought you died.”

Shiro turns and grabs his forearm tightly. “And Voltron?”

Keith’s pretty brows draw together in a frown. “Voltron? I...” He shakes his head lightly. “There’ve been whispers. Rumors that there’s more to the Lions, that if Zarkon ever got all of them, he’d have a weapon more powerful than the Universe has ever seen. But that’s all they were. Rumors. Voltron is a myth.”

Shiro goes cold. He’s clutching Keith’s wrist tightly enough to leave white indents below his fingers, but neither of them notice. In this reality, he never escaped from the fighting pits. In this reality, Keith never found the Blue Lion, they never became Paladins. In this reality, Voltron never stopped the Galra reign of terror.

But they still have a chance. 

“Voltron is very real. Keith, Voltron is how we save the Universe.”

Keith’s eyes narrow slightly. “What do you mean?” 

“I...” Shiro starts, then pauses, searching for the right words. “This is going to be hard to explain. I’m not—I’m not exactly who you think I am.”

Keith searches his eyes, then lets his gaze trail over him, over his long, shaggy hair and the scars and the metal arm and his ragged, stained clothes. Some kind of understanding dawns in his face, accompanied by misplaced sympathy. “I know you feel like you’re a different person. That your time with the Galra changed you. But I _know_ you. You’re still my Shiro.”

“No, that’s not—I’m _not_ your Shiro. I think...” He takes a breath, steeling himself, as if saying this out loud will somehow make it more real. “I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but I think I’m from an alternate reality. Or my soul is, anyway.”

Keith’s brows climb.

And Shiro knows how it sounds. He knows. But now that he’s spoken it into existence, it feels more right than anything has since seeing Keith again. Confidence bolstered, he continues. 

“Where I come from, I escaped the Galra and made it back to Earth. You found the Blue Lion, and together with some of your classmates from the Garrison, we gathered the other Lions, formed Voltron, and defeated Zarkon in battle. I led the team as Black Paladin, and you were my right hand.”

His eyes flicker to where Keith is watching him like he’s grown a second head. He takes both Keith’s hands in his and bends slightly to stare into his eyes. “I know how this sounds. Just... look at me.”

Seconds tick by, Keith’s gaze heavy on him. In his reality, Keith is an open book, every emotion written plainly across his face for all to see. This reality’s Keith is no different. Shiro watches his expressions slowly shift from confused to skeptical. But as the silence stretches between them, and Shiro keeps looking at him, trying to somehow wordlessly convey this entire other existence through his eyes, something finally clicks into place.

Keith blinks, then leans slightly closer to look into Shiro’s eyes, and the next instant he’s up and backing away from Shiro in one fluid movement. “Who... _what_ are you?”

Shiro gets up and goes to him, putting both hands on his shoulders. “I’m still me. I’m still Shiro.”

Keith crosses his arms defensively, but doesn’t back away. 

Shiro suppresses the urge to sigh. “I’m not exactly sure what happened, but in our last fight against Zarkon, I think... I think I died.”

“If you died,” Keith says breathlessly, staring, “then how are you here?”

“I don’t know. I think the Black Lion saved me.”

“By... sending you to an alternate reality?” The way Keith says it, almost laughing, nearly makes Shiro doubt again. 

He shakes his head to dispel it. “I know how it sounds. But no one really knows what the Lions are or where they came from. All I know is that there are a thousand Galra ships out there, and hundreds of Blade operatives who could have been on that mission. But it wasn’t any of them. It was you, and it was my ship, and you found me at the precise moment I woke up in this body. I can’t believe that’s a coincidence. Something sent me to this place, and something led you to me.”

“Or you got hit on the head really hard in the explosion,” Keith growls, ducking away from Shiro to lean against the hull of the fighter. He sighs, shaking his head. “Even if what you’re saying is true, we all learned meta-universe theory in school... Out of infinite possible realities, why this one? Why send you here?” 

“I have to believe it’s for a reason. Maybe that reason was to help you form Voltron.”

Keith chews his bottom lip, and the gesture is so familiar Shiro has to duck his head to hide his smile. He’s traced that lip where Keith’s teeth left light grooves; kissed them until they faded. 

“Voltron.” The word is laced with reservation.

Shiro goes to Keith then, looks into his violet eyes and asks, “Do you trust me?”

Keith has to tilt his head back slightly to meet his gaze, and this too makes a rush of warm fondness bloom in Shiro’s chest.

“... Yes.” Keith’s voice is hardly above a whisper.

Shiro allows himself a small smile. “Then set a course for planet Arus.”

“What’s on Arus?” 

_Our friends_ , Shiro thinks. _Our new home. The beginning of the end of Zarkon’s rule. The fate of the Universe._

_The Black Lion._

He says, “Everything that’s left that still matters.”

Keith looks at him a second longer, then turns and wordlessly makes his way to the cockpit of the ship. 

Shiro sits down heavily on the small bench, closing his eyes and resting his head back. He lets his thoughts clear, focusing on his breathing until all physical sensations around him disappear and he finds himself in that quiet place where his connection with Black lives.

The space usually filled with purple stars and paintbrush swirls of bright light is unnaturally dark. Shiro’s footsteps echo, rippling as though he’s walking on water. His connection to the Black Lion of his own reality is faint, a dim pulsing glow on the horizon, weak and distant. Like in a dream, it stays ever out of reach, no matter how close he tries to get to it. When he brushes his consciousness against hers, he gets no response—only the vaguest sense of recognition. 

She’s a stone at the bottom of a river, distorted by the waves of the current.

Shiro takes a deep mental breath and _sinks_. The dark water swallows him up, and it’s cold and unfamiliar and _vast_. The Black Lion of this reality lies dormant in the Castleship, asleep for centuries. She doesn’t know Shiro. There’s nothing for him to connect to. 

Something warps around him, pushing. The world tilts, darkness eating at the edges of his mind. His throat closes up. His lungs constrict. He claws his way back to the surface of the mindspace, clenching his fingers and his toes and the muscles in his neck and every part of his body that he can in a desperate attempt to stay connected to it.

He doesn’t have much time left.

The spell fades, but Shiro remains tense, scared that if he relaxes it might somehow loosen the hold his soul has on his body completely. He isn’t sure how much time passes, but eventually, he slowly feels his mind cohere again. A few deep, measured breaths, and he pries his hands off the edge of the bench finger by finger.

Exhausted, he slumps back against the hull. He must’ve fallen asleep, because when next he opens his eyes, Keith is in the hull of the ship with him, rummaging around in one of the hidden compartments in the floor. The Marmora uniform accentuates the lines of his back and arms, leanly muscled and lithe, a second skin clinging to every curve. He stands, long legs unfolding gracefully, and holds a small packet of sealed water out to Shiro.

Shiro takes it, fingers brushing against Keith’s a moment longer than necessary. “Thanks.”

“Mnh,” Keith murmurs around his own straw. 

They finish their water in silence, and Keith is staring at Shiro with an expression like he wants to say something but isn’t sure how. It’s only after he’s disposed of the empty packets that he turns to him, resolved and lip red with teeth marks. He crouches in front of Shiro, fingers brushing the metal of his arm. “What happened to you?” His voice is soft, face drawn as he reaches out hesitantly toward the scar on Shiro’s nose. 

Shiro takes his wrist lightly, pulling it away. “I think that’s a story for your Shiro to tell.”

Between them is an unspoken gravity. Keith’s pulse flutters under Shiro’s fingers. The violet of his eyes is warm and inviting, a color Shiro made a home in once, in a different time and place.

Keith breaks their gaze, tucking a strand of black hair behind his ear. It’s longer than the other Keith’s, but no less unruly. He looks at Shiro almost shyly, and it’s not an expression Shiro is used to seeing on him. “In your reality...” He trails off, bites his lip. “Are we?”

Shiro chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck. “Uh. Yeah. We are.”

Keith looks down, curling in on himself a little. 

A silence grows between them, laden with sadness and yearning, a silence Shiro suddenly finds himself needing to fill because he can’t stand the look on Keith’s face, so rejected, so young and vulnerable. 

“We were stuck in this remote star system, you and me,” he starts, watching Keith’s face carefully, “and we got separated. I was hurt. You came for me from all the way across the planet. Keith, you found me. That was the moment it clicked into place for me. But I think I knew long before then.”

Keith frowns, and Shiro has to fight the urge to reach over and touch his face, has to remind himself that this isn’t his Keith, that even though they’re sitting right next to each other, his Keith is a universe away. 

Instead, he pulls his knees up and hugs them, and says, “When the Galra took me, it broke me. Even after I managed to escape physically, it felt like a part of me would always be stuck on that ship, fighting in the Pits. For so long, I went back there every night in my dreams...” He shudders with the memory, hugging his knees a bit tighter. “And then you were there. Everything happened at once. We went to space and found the Lions and suddenly we were Team Voltron. And somewhere along the way, I stopped seeing Sendak’s ship in my dreams, and started seeing you.”

Keith makes a soft involuntary sound, and Shiro clenches his fingers on the seams of his leggings to not touch him. He tries to convey every emotion he’s ever had for Keith in his eyes when he looks at him and says, “Voltron did so much more than save the universe from Zarkon’s rule. It saved me, by bringing you to me.”

Keith’s eyes flicker between his, his breathing fast and shallow. He opens his mouth on an inhale, but the ship shudders, robbing him of his words. A mechanical voice tells them they’ve arrived at their destination, and inertia tugs at their stomachs as the ship starts to drop through Arus’ atmosphere. 

With an apologetic half-smile, Keith levers himself up and ducks into the cockpit to guide the ship to a safe landing, leaving Shiro alone with the echoes of his words and the distant darkness ever straining toward him.

In contrast to the fire and violence of their entry, Arus is quiet and blue and green, miles of ocean gently kissing banks of soft, white sand and brightly-colored birds wheeling through the sky. They exit the steaming and clicking hull of the ship to crisp, sweet-smelling air, their boots crunching over fallen leaves and twigs and leaving deep imprints in the damp ground.

The Castle of Lions is exactly as Shiro remembers it—tall, white spires, pristine and unspoiled despite the mounds of earth eating at them from below, and behind it, marshmallow clouds brushing the edges of the glittering sea. Bridges stretch toward the false mountain from all sides, arches broken and decayed but their walkways somehow still intact, as if protected by some kind of magic or Altean alchemy. It’s along one of these that they approach the abandoned and overgrown base of the Castleship. The sun is just setting, magnificent, shrouding everything in orange. 

As they get closer, Shiro’s connection to the Black Lion of this reality starts to thrum. He can feel her slowly seep through the pathways and synapses of his mind where his Paladin abilities live, but she’s weak—no more than a reflection in a pond distorted by ripples. He isn’t her Paladin in this reality, but she recognizes the echoes of her other self in him, and her curiosity is like a deep hum vibrating down his spine.

Shiro allows her to touch his mind, watching the expressions change on Keith’s face as they walk along the bridge, eyes wide and mouth forming a little ‘o’ of wonder. The Castleship is as familiar to Shiro as his dorm room in the Garrison back on Earth—he knows every corridor, every tile. But to Keith, this is all new. 

They stop at the base of the Ship, looking up at the turrets curving toward the pink sky, and there’s awe in Keith’s voice when he says, “I can feel... something. An energy.”

Shiro glances at him, taken aback. “You can?”

Keith nods. “Like a song in the back of my mind.”

Shiro seeks deep within himself for where his connection with Black has settled into a kind of constant drone, too deep to hear. When he brushes against it, he finds it overlaid with a sense of rightness, as if she’s saying, _Yes, it’s him, it’s always been him_.

He turns to stare at Keith in wonder. “It’s the Black Lion. She’s calling to... you.”

“Me?” Keith frowns at Shiro. “But _you’re_ the Black Paladin.”

Shiro smiles gently. “In my reality, I told you once that if anything happened to me, I wanted you to lead Voltron. I think some part of me knew, even then...” He pauses then to look up at the Castle, and imagines he can see through the walls to where Black is sitting, dormant. Stop-motion flashes of memory drift around him like falling ash—his own memories of a wound in his side, aching, mouths with too many teeth snarling, and the Black Lion, impossible, _real_ , with Keith at the helm. ”... It was always meant to be you. Keith, I think you’re the rightful Paladin of the Black Lion.”

Something heavy slots into place in his chest, and he fills with the warmth of pride. Alongside it is a sense of foreboding, of what it means for him if Keith becomes Black Paladin. A wave of vertigo rolls over him at the thought, and he isn’t quite sure that it’s just the fading of his soul’s connection to this body.

“I’m not a leader,” Keith says, bringing him back to the present, “I don’t want this. All I want is to have you—to have my Shiro back.”

Shiro sighs. “I’m sorry. This isn’t a choice you can make... You have to do this, Keith. The whole universe is waiting for you to take your place as the leader of Voltron.”

Keith looks down, doubt written in the lines of his face. “But what if I can’t do it?”

“You can.” Shiro puts his hand on Keith’s shoulder. “I have faith in you. I’ve never met anyone stronger or with more determination. The world has already taken so much from you, demanded so much sacrifice. I know you don’t want this, but that’s exactly the reason it should be you. And remember, I’m here, too. I love you.” 

There’s a long moment where all they do is look at each other, and the last rays of the setting sun lance through their eyes and the gentle wind stirs their hair.

And suddenly Keith is in his space, throwing his arms around Shiro’s neck and leaning up awkwardly to kiss him. Shiro is too shocked to respond at first, hands frozen in half-claws in the air. But it’s Keith, and it may not be his Keith, but it feels like him—the familiar slender fingers buried in his hair and the sweet-tasting lips moving against his and the warmth of his body seeping into his bones—and it all suddenly becomes too much for Shiro. He kisses back for a long, blissful moment of weakness, and he knows it’s wrong, but it feels so good. When his mind finally catches up to what his body is doing, he pushes Keith away. “We can’t.” 

Keith goes, pliant and contrite. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’ve just... I feel like I’ve been waitin’ my whole life for you to love me back.”

Shiro’s heart breaks for him, for every memory he has of kissing him, for how his whole world revolves around him. Every insecurity his own Keith had before they found each other is written plainly now on this Keith’s face—how impossible it seemed that someone like Shiro could love someone like him, how sure he was that Shiro would eventually leave, just like everyone else. How he still loved him, despite that.

The void gapes open again, and Shiro feels himself being pulled in. It’s an anchor as much as it is an omen; time is running out.

“I can’t stay,” he says, with not a small measure of regret. 

“Don’t go,” Keith says, and when he looks up at Shiro again his eyes shine. “Please.”

Shiro swallows down a sigh, aching for him. “Keith. I have to.”

“I know it’s selfish and horrible, but... I just got you back. And you love me... while _he_ doesn’t.” He means this reality’s Shiro. The real Shiro. “How can I give that up? My universe is so much better with you in it.” 

And Shiro knows it is, he does, because his own world was pale before Keith, as if color didn’t exist before he knew him. He feels Keith’s words sink into him, into the deepest parts where the other Shiro lies dormant. Something resonates, a clear sound like a bell being struck. And he understands that this Shiro loves Keith as much as he does. That not loving him is as impossible as white holes and dark matter. 

So he says, “He loves you, Keith.”

and 

“Of course he loves you.”

and 

“We’d love you even if we didn’t know you. In all realities.”

“Then stay,” Keith implores, eyes intense.

But Shiro doesn’t think he can, even if he wanted to. Even now, he feels stretched thin, a flickering shadow clinging to a slick surface. Eventually, he’ll fade into nothing. In front of him stretches infinite black nothingness, and he’s barely hanging on, about to fall. It’s inevitable.

Keith understands this from Shiro’s silence. He takes a shaky breath, looking down, and then up at Shiro again, resigned. “One last kiss?”

Shiro cups his cheek and presses their lips together, and it’s more than a kiss: it’s a promise that connects him to all the other variants of himself, like a delicate web of string lights in the dark; it’s _always_ and it’s _in all realities_. 

He pulls away from Keith, steadying him when he swoons in, and composes himself. “I have to go back to my reality. My team needs me. You need me.”

“But you died,” Keith points out, and Shiro nearly smiles at his candidness, “How can you help them?”

“I don’t know. But I have to try.” Shiro fights against the encroaching dark, clenching his fists. “Please, Keith. I don’t have much time before this body rejects my consciousness. Help me.”

“How?”

“You have a connection with the Black Lion. I need you to look inside yourself. Find it.” 

“I don’t know how to do that.” 

Shiro reaches out to take his hand. “Let me help you.”

He pulls Keith down, and they sit cross-legged on the sun-warmed grass, facing each other. 

“Close your eyes.” He waits for Keith to comply before shutting his own.

Reaching out, he opens himself and seeks down into that deep place for his connection with his reality’s Black Lion. She’s weak still, a distant pulse on the purple horizon. The moment he touches her, he can feel Keith there alongside him, his consciousness bright and warm in the dark. 

_Can you feel her?_ Shiro wonders, and it isn’t words so much as emotion and intent transmitted instantly to Keith’s mind, his understanding ringing clear and immediate.

_Yes._

Their shared connection strengthens his bond with Black until she is a large and heavy presence in both their minds. He pulls Keith along the shining thread of her consciousness, letting her guide them to where the Black Lion of this reality waits, a shadow looming on the edges of the horizon.

The two Lions’ minds touch and there is a moment of understanding, of perfect clarity, as if all the mysteries in the universe were suddenly laid out before them like a tapestry made of a million shimmering threads—

And then they’re violently thrown back into their own bodies, reality returning with a gasp like cold water poured over their heads. 

They come alive again, catching their breath. Shiro’s heart is racing, adrenaline surging through his body.

A brilliant flash of light from the topmost turret of the Castleship casts stark, angular shadows on the ground for a second, and then the Black Lion is hovering above them. They leap to their feet, heads tilted back to stare up at her. She’s magnificent, the last rays of the setting sun glinting off her body, every line of her sharp with a gentle kind of violence. She looks down on them, and Shiro knows they both feel the gravity of her in their minds, massive and benevolent.

Behind her, the Castleship comes to life. Lights flare one by one, engines engaging with a roar deep enough to shake the ground they stand on. Dust billows out from its base in great clouds, the wind of her awakening whipping Shiro’s long hair around his face.

Keith is staring up at Black, breath caught in his throat. She’s hovering close enough to touch, and he does, reaching up one gloved hand to lay his fingers gently on the tip of her nose. It lasts only a second before he pulls his hand back as though shocked, and the Lion rumbles a deep roar, setting down on the ground beside them.

“She spoke to me,” Keith says, voice laced with awe as he looks at Shiro. “She knows what to do.”

Shiro looks up at the Lion. “I guess this is it, then.”

Keith hangs his head. “I... still don’t want you to go.”

Shiro’s heart breaks a little, and he steps into his space to hug him, because in that moment it’s impossible for him not to. He tries to ignore the way Keith is shaking against him, the way he’s clutching at his shirt as if letting go would ruin him. He turns his head slightly to murmur into his ear, “Inside this castle is the beginning of the rest of your life. You’ll meet Allura and Coran and the other Paladins. You’ll grow to love them, and they’ll love you. Keith, you won’t be alone anymore.”

“But you’ll be gone,” Keith sniffs.

Shiro pushes him back to look at him. “I won’t. I’m here, with you. All realities, remember?” 

Keith nods, and says through choked-back tears, “All realities.” 

They let go of each other, and Shiro nods at Black, and feels her touch his mind, a gentle and loving nudge toward the future. For the first time since he woke up, he feels like he can breathe again. He’s ready. 

“Will you be okay? Back there?” Keith asks softly.

“You’ll find me, Keith. I know you will.” He reaches out to tuck a strand of Keith’s hair behind his ear. “Until then, all I have to do is hold on.”

Keith blinks back tears and swallows heavily, nodding. He takes Shiro’s hand, and reaches out to touch Black’s nose. “See you soon, old-timer.”

Shiro smiles, and closes his eyes, and everything goes white around him.


End file.
